


but i have chosen you out of this world

by miscellanium



Category: Hellsing
Genre: Canonical Character Death, Character Study, Grief/Mourning, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-16
Updated: 2020-12-16
Packaged: 2021-03-10 21:41:41
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 681
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28114062
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/miscellanium/pseuds/miscellanium
Summary: The look on Maxwell's face, the outstretched hand, shook something in him. Something deep and disquiet, like bones rising from the mud after a great flood.
Relationships: Alexander Anderson/Enrico Maxwell
Comments: 2
Kudos: 8





	but i have chosen you out of this world

He had to die, and in dying be saved. It was the Lord's will, surely, else the cage—for it was a cage—would not have fallen, not been overrun. So Anderson threw his holy sword for a kind of peace, to give Maxwell a peace he had not known in life. _For God so loved the world that he gave his only son—_

The look on Maxwell's face, the outstretched hand, shook something in him. Something deep and disquiet, like bones rising from the mud after a great flood. That selfish coward, they should have been on the ground together with backs touching and weapons ready (impossible). He should have remained alone, bayonets flashing, while Maxwell stayed distant on the hill, or across the ocean (also impossible). Cowardice to stay above the battlefield, selfishness to stay close. They were both damned in the eyes of God and for the sake of the Lord and they were to be washed from their sins in His blood as the blood of their blasphemous enemies but was this how it was meant to end on this earth?

_His head and his hairs were white like wool, as white as snow; and his eyes were as a flame of fire;_ and he was pierced with spears as Christ was pierced. This was right, then, this was fitting. Anderson watched, the loving rage of the Lord filling him as Maxwell died. Coward.

Anderson cut through the bodies before him—he would turn this city into a ruin before he was done, more desolate than it already was and ever had been, and all would know that he was a tool of the Lord. He had only ever been a tool, Maxwell knew that, should have known that this was not betrayal but divine will, that there was nothing left of himself—overlaying the furious passion there was a grinding feeling, like bone against bone or the gears of the Lord ratcheting through the dirt of this world.

He gathered Maxwell's body to himself. Without shedding of blood there is no forgiveness, and Maxwell was covered in blood. He would not be forgiven, neither of them would be, but the life of the flesh is in the blood and the remnants of the cage made a sort of platform on which the two of them rested, a sort of altar. A sacrifice had been made with more to come. Anderson stroked Maxwell's hair, stained gloves dragging red viscera through those white locks, and closed the boy's eyes. He had never stopped being a boy, always younger than Anderson's now-ageless body forever regenerating, and in those last moments he had reached out like a child seeking comfort.

And there it was, this feeling of a chasm opening, a great lurch inside him. He had loved, allowed himself to love in a way the Lord could not. Maxwell's body laid across his lap, fingers curled like carefully carved marble, weighed not on his conscience but something darker. God, did he love this world that would take his only—? Yet it was not a question of loving the world, it hadn't been for a long time. Simple enough to take atonement on his tongue, simpler still to purge all earthly desires and give himself over wholly to serving the Church. _Love not the world, neither the things that are in the world. If any man love the world, the love of the Father is not in him._

Now he could truly say he did not love the world. This world was not his home. Anderson lifted Maxwell, body light in his arms without its soul, and placed him on the ground the way he would place him on his bed at night in the orphanage. Anderson could not rest yet, not with the Lord's task of slaying the fanged emblem of perfidy still before him, but he would see Maxwell again.

He rose and faced the flames, the undead, the wreckage, and thought to himself: _And now I am no more in the world and I come to thee._

**Author's Note:**

> kudos and comments are always much appreciated.


End file.
